The Making Of SZA’s “The Weekend” With ThankGod4Cody

Cody knew he had a hit on his hands as soon as SZA finished the song.

SZA’s debut album Ctrl was one of the most anticipated albums of the year, and the project’s sixth track “The Weekend” took off immediately. Quickly grabbing everyone’s attention due to its subject matter, the song has over 31 million plays on Spotify, another 1.4 million Soundcloud streams, and an upcoming video directed by Solange. Memphis producer ThankGod4Cody is responsible for the beat, and he sat down with Genius to explain how he created it.

Cody starts the story of the beat’s origin with a short anecdote about a close friend. “I was in a kitchen at a table, I had a little speaker set up in this kitchen at the table,” he told Genius. “My guy Script standing in the doorway of the little screen door, and he had gave me this Justin Timberlake sample. And he was like, ‘Bro, you should sample this.’ And I knew I was just gonna take that part and go off with it.” The Justin Timberlake song he references is “Set The Mood (Prelude)/Until The End Of Time” from the 2006 album FutureSex/LoveSounds.

The production was made with SZA in mind, and Cody was impressed with the final product. “I was trying to make her like, just give her this alley-oop in the form of a beat, And she caught that shit, and did a slick windmill on it,” he described to Genius. He was also surprised by the song’s topic, which is about sharing a man in a relationship. “It’s just a crazy concept, I would have never thought it would have went that way. She really just did her thing on there, really came with a concept that’s controversial on some levels.” It’s cool, because at least it’s starting a conversation, and it’s getting people’s attention."

The first thing Cody added to the song after being handed the sample was chords. He then sought to add more depth to the track, laying a “glittery layer” over it and some bass. From there, he felt the song out and used his own taste to direct the process. “I don’t know, I found this one sound, and I just started going crazy,” Cody relayed to Genius. “I didn’t even know what it was gonna end up being. I was like, ‘That sound pretty hard.’ That’s when I started playing a little melody with the keys.”

After his experimentation, Cody clipped a vocal from the original sample for use in the beginning of the song, then moved on to the drums. After some added in reverb, and placing the song’s snares and hi-hats, the beat was nearly finished. He rounded it all out with a cymbal and took himself back to the first time he heard SZA’s lyrics over his production. “When I first heard what SZA did to the song, I knew it was finna go off, just because of the concept and how it made me feel right off the bat,” Cody emphasized. “It just feels like a R&B hit, just off the bat. I didn’t know how far it would go, and it’s still moving right now.”